


Recipe for disaster

by Captain_Snark



Series: The valentine debacle [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry's ringtone for Cisco is the imperial march, Len should not be allowed to make food for puns, M/M, a sad amount of puns, and now I can't imagine anything but them being dorky enough to do it, because I read it in another fic, dinner date, little old ladies are always in danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6705073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Snark/pseuds/Captain_Snark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry and Len have their dinner date and Barry is dead-set on having no taste buds. Len should really have known things never go as planned when Barry's involved. Len has to save his chili con carne, while Barry has to save little old ladies and the whole thing is kind of a mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recipe for disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the only reason Len is making chili is because it has the word chill in it. Yes, the title is a pun and I am not ashamed. And yes, I am heavily convinced that Barry doesn't so much care as to what he eats but how much he eats, taste buds be damned.
> 
> (Also, it's been so long since I wrote anything for this series and all of a sudden inspiration came to me, apologies)

Having dinner with Barry does in no way go as Len had imagined it to go. He had everything planned out, contingency plans in place and Lisa busy being Lisa elsewhere. He should have accounted for the force of nature that is Barry, who does everything in his power to thwart Len’s plans.

Barry shows up at his doorstep, soles of his shoe burning and hair wind-swept with an apologetic smile on his face when he notices how he’s burning shoe imprints into Len’s carpet. Len thinks he should be annoyed, but it’s kind of adorable and he’s never telling anyone he just had that thought.

“Shoes off, before you burn the house down,” he tells Barry, motioning for him to come inside.

Barry gives him a sheepish nod, takes off his smoking shoes and then follows, his eyes taking in the apartment. It’s probably one of the nicer apartments Len owns and one he actually enjoys spending his time in. Some of the apartments he owns are so run-down he fears the ceiling might collapse any moment.

“I thought we were going out like… Not that this place isn’t great! It’s really nice, I mean very spacious… err… yep great place and all but…”

“Relax, Scarlet, before you turn scarlet,” Len drawls, a satisfied smirk on his face when Barry’s face goes red. “I’m cooking,” he continues, “Probably wouldn’t want to run into any of your friends at the precinct.”

“Right, master thief. Got it,” Barry says, releasing a sigh.

“I’m not going to poison you, if you’re worried.”

“Sound suspiciously like what someone would say when they are planning to poison someone,” Barry mutters.

“You don’t really think I’m that cold, do you, Barry?”

“What are we even eating?”

“Chili con carne,” Len replies with a smirk.

“Is that supposed to be a pun? I swear, Snart. You’re ridiculous.”

After that it becomes clear Barry is dead-set on making his chili con carne as inedible as humanly possible. It starts out with him suggesting Len double the amount of meat and while he’s at it, maybe double the amount of everything and then triple the meat. Also Barry’s taste buds are broken because the spices he wants to put in are never going to make it taste right.

When Len catches him sneaking in even more meat, of which Len has no idea where it came from, he’s had enough and he decides to bench Barry from helping with the food. It’s ridiculous because Barry actually glares at him and then goes on to raid his fridge for whatever food he can find.

“I swear if you’re going to put whipped cream on those pickles and stuff them in your face, I am throwing you out,” Len threatens when Barry eyes the can of whipped cream in between shoving entire pickles in his mouth.

Of course Barry takes it as a challenge and two seconds later he’s swallowing down gallons of water to get the taste out of his mouth. Len would say I told you so if he wasn’t impressed by how fast it all happened.

“How did you…” he starts but is interrupted by the sound of Barry’s phone going off, blasting the imperial march.

Barry picks up with an apologetic smile while setting the jar of pickles down on the counter. A jar that now has only two pickles in it. Where the hell did all those pickles go?

“So there’s a bank robbery at fifth with the possibility of a little old lady being in danger,” Barry says, interrupting Len’s thoughts. “Because, according to Cisco, there’s always a little old lady and I…”

“Just go, Red. I’ll manage to make this chili con carne on my own,” Len replies with a shooing matter and Barry is gone with a giant smile on his face, jar of pickles wobbling precariously on the edge of the counter from the sudden gust of wind.

It isn’t until Len is working on the food in complete silence without Barry’s meddling that he realises Barry disappeared in the direction of his wall and not the door. He tries not to dwell on it.

Five minutes later, Len is setting the table when Barry reappears in full Flash regalia through the wall and he almost drops the plates he was carrying to the table out of surprise. There is no way that just happened. Len refuses to believe it did.

“No little old lady, but there was an elderly man, so I’ll give Cisco the benefit of the doubt,” Barry says as if he didn’t just walk through a wall and defy everything Len knew about things that should be humanly possible.

He stares at Barry for what he’s pretty sure is longer than necessary and has Barry fidgeting on his feet, before speaking up.

“Dinner’s ready?” It sounds a little more like a question than a statement and if some of the amazement he’s feeling seeps in, Len is firmly denying it.

“Great! I’m starving!”

Len thinks that can hardly be the case and Barry’s only saying it to relieve some of the awkwardness, because he’s pretty sure his fridge is pretty much empty after Barry’s food raid, when Barry proves him wrong. He doesn’t even see the first serving of food he gives Barry disappear. It’s there one second and just gone the next.

The whole reason why Barry continued adding ingredients becomes poignantly clear once he’s on his third serving and wolfing that down. Barry’s stomach is a bottomless pit. Quite literally. It’s equally amazing and disgusting how fast Barry stuffs his face, once he slows down enough for Len to actually see the movements.

Barry’s about halfway through his third plate when he notices Len’s staring and turns red. He looks embarrassed almost as he avoids Len’s questioning gaze.

“High speed metabolism,” he says in lieu of an explanation.

When Len remains silent he elaborates with a sigh. “I need about 10.000 calories a day… Cisco makes these high calorie bars, but I’ve run out and… I just eat a lot?”

“Could’ve just told me so instead of trying to ruin my chili,” Len tells him, because he’s not sure what to say to that. He simply nods and stores the information away in his brain.

“I didn’t ruin it!” Barry denies, gesturing widely with his fork as if to prove a point.

“You wanted to add pineapple, Scarlet. Pineapple!” Len sounds scandalised.

“It all ends up in the same place, what’s the big deal?” Barry argues. Because of course someone with a black hole for a stomach would think that was actually a valid argument.

“It’s disgusting and next time you’re not even allowed in the kitchen.”

Barry flushes at that. His eyes going wide as he stares at Len.

“Next time?”

Len’s pretty sure he’s never heard Barry sound so timid, it’s weird but also has a warm feeling spread inside of him. He loses track of time then, looking Barry in the eye. For once, he’s not counting seconds and feels like time is slowing down around them. He vaguely wonders if Barry knows the feeling of time dilating, if it is the same for someone who spends most of his days at more than 600 miles per hour.

“Next time,” Len decides after a while, nodding.

“I… err… I’ll make sure Cisco has new bars by then.”

“You insinuating I can’t feed you properly?”

“I’m insinuating you shouldn’t spend hundreds of dollars on groceries just to make me dinner.”

“Barry, you and I both know money is not a problem,” Len drawls. Barry looks at him incredulously as he just grins back. “If I can’t afford it, I’ll just have to rob a bank mid-dinner. After all, I’m pretty sure the Flash will be too busy being hungry to come stop me.”

“You’re not robbing a bank.”

“Why? You offering to rob one for me?”

Barry doesn’t reply, instead deciding to pout at him. Len isn’t completely sure the pout is supposed to be a pout or a glare.

“You have something on your face by the way,” Len says, because it’s true. Although it’s more like Barry’s face is on something by the amount of sauce all over Barry’s face. Speed eating seems to have its drawbacks.

“What?” Barry asks confused as Len tosses him a napkin.

“You’re worse than a toddler, honestly,” Len comments as Barry starts the task of cleaning his face. He’s offered a sheepish smile in return and Len’s stomach is doing weird flips because Barry messed up his chili.

The motion of Barry’s hand blurs for a second, but when he finishes there’s still sauce on his cheek and he looks absolutely ridiculous. Len’s kind of surprised there’s no food in his hair.

“Missed a bit.”

“Where?” Barry asks, wiping his face with the napkin again and evidently missing the spot big time.

Len almost cringes because of how cliché the whole thing is as he leans over the table, own napkin in hand, to help him. Barry’s face is now decidedly lobster-coloured, but he doesn’t move away from Len when he touches his face.

In fact, Len’s pretty sure Barry is leaning into the touch. Which begs the question whether Barry is all about romantic clichés. He certainly doesn’t seem to mind much.

“There,” Len says as he moves to lean back into his own seat.

Barry, however, is quicker (because of course he is) and grabs his hand before he can retreat. Len’s not sure how to breathe when their gazes meet again, somehow even more intense than last time.

The moment is ruined when the imperial march sounds from Barry’s phone and Len is 100% planning on killing every little old lady in Central himself so they can no longer be in any danger to interrupt him and Barry.

With another apologetic smile Barry’s gone and Len’s alone in his apartment. Once it’s past midnight, it’s clear Barry’s not coming back, so he puts as much as he can of the leftover food in Tupperware boxes and heads to bed. He’s glad Lisa isn’t there to see him definitely not smiling.

-

To say Len is surprised when he finds the door to his apartment cracked open and the lock forced the next day, is an understatement. Especially since the only person besides Mick and Lisa to know where he lives is Barry, who apparently runs through locked doors and walls as if they are not even there. Which, by the way, Len is still waiting for a decent explanation on. 

The forced lock, however, does explain itself to him as soon as he drops his bags of groceries on the kitchen counter. He can immediately sense someone behind him and goes to grab the cold gun, when suddenly there’s a gun against his head. 

“Don’t even think about it.”

He turns around at those words, recognizing the voice instantly and mockingly holding his hands up. There in his kitchen and aiming a gun at his head is a pissed-off looking Iris West. Iris West, who of course knows where he lives, because Barry showed up in full costume last night and Len should really have known that costume has a tracker in it.

Len feels like he’s having a reverse déjà vu from Christmas. He wonders if this is Iris’s revenge for him breaking into her home then. She definitely looks as mad now as she did then, albeit a different kind of mad. This time it’s less _‘how dare you break into my home’_ and more _‘raise one finger to Barry and your full of bullet holes’_. There’s a subtle difference.

The serious expression on her face, however, soon turns into one of mirth as she regards the amount of groceries on the counter. Because the amount of food Barry consumes on a daily basis is apparently just as ridiculous as his ability to walk through walls and how does Barry even afford that much food?

“Is there a reason you are here, Ms. West?” Len drawls.

Iris trains her eyes back on him, serious expression back in place as she tightens her hold on the gun. Len might have been worried, if she were actually likely to kill him. He had no doubt she could handle a gun, but the intent to kill wasn’t there.

“You and I both know I’m not going to use this to kill you, Snart,” she stated. “But if this is some fucked up plan to get to Barry…”

“It’s not,” he interrupts. He should’ve expected the shovel talk, but strangely enough he had expected Joe West to be the one to give it, if the good detective were to ever find out. Len wasn’t planning on it.

“You’ve betrayed him before, Snart,” she reminds him, watching his face closely. Unfortunately for her Len is a master in schooling his expression and hiding his reaction to things.

When the silence stretches on, Iris speaks up again. “If you hurt him, I will take you down. There’s a lot of things a newspaper could publish on one Captain Cold after all.”

“I suppose there are,” Len asserts, watching her carefully. There wasn’t even a hint that she was lying or not willing to go through with it. The whole thing reminds him a lot of Lisa and he can respect that.

She is about to say more when Lisa decides this is the perfect moment to show up with Mick in tow, no doubt to find out as much gossip as she can. Both of their reactions are instantaneous, heat gun and gold gun now aimed directly at Iris, who is looking intently at Len.

“Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?” demands Lisa, while Mick doesn’t bother talking and is already charging his heat gun, ready to fire at any moment.

“Put the guns away, Lisa, Mick,” Len tells them. He isn’t an idiot, letting your best friend torch your date’s foster sister is not a good start for any relationship. And he does not need a speech from Barry on why threatening and hurting other people is bad.

“But, Lenny, she…”

“I said put it away, Lisa. She’s not going to shoot. There’s no ammo in that gun.”

Iris’s expression morphs into shock when he calls her bluff, before quickly regaining her composure. “Should have known you’d know it wasn’t loaded,” she says, dropping the gun on the counter and turning around to leave, apparently satisfied with whatever information she had gotten from him.

“Before you go, take the Tupperware. He can have it.”

Iris looks at him in surprise now, body more relaxed than it had been during the entire encounter. With a smile, she nods and picks up the boxes.

Lisa and Mick are both looking at her completely flabbergasted, lowering their guns as she passes them. Apparently Barry is not the only one in the family that knows how to surprise a criminal.

“He likes lasagne by the way. You know, 2 kilograms of it on average,” Iris calls over her shoulder as she disappears around the corner.

Len barely resists muttering an _‘of course he does’_ as Lisa rounds on him.

“What the hell, Lenny!” she shouts, followed by an agreeing grunt from Mick.

“What?”

“Don’t you play dumb with me! Who was that and…” she stops mid-sentence as she finally spots all of the groceries behind Len. “I thought you just went grocery shopping yesterday for… Wait. Hold up. She knows the Flash!” Lisa accuses then, pointing behind her at the door where Iris disappeared.

“She might be privy to his identity, yes,” Len replies.

“So she was here to what…?” she asks confused. When there’s no reply her confusion morphs into glee and soon there’s a grin on her face that rivals the Cheshire cat’s. “You totally got a shovel talk.”

“No comment.”

“Girl’s got balls,” Mick comments, his face strangely unreadable.

“How much does lover boy even eat?” Lisa comments, eying the mountain of groceries again.

“He apparently needs 10.000 calories a day.”

“Sounds like the kid needs a ‘feed the Flash’ charity fund,” Mick notes. “Or you volunteering?”

Len certainly does not appreciate the smirk that accompanies that statement. Mick can go fuck himself or annoy Lisa. In fact he and Lisa can do exactly that, fuck off and annoy each other. He certainly doesn’t need Lisa putting her nose in his love life.

“I bet Lenny wants the Flash to use his mouth for other things than eating… Then again…”

Len refuses to answer to anything they say after that.

It isn’t until Lisa and Mick have finally calmed down and stopped cracking jokes, that Len has to wonder where and how Iris West learned to pick a lock.


End file.
